Pranab Mukherjee – True Son of India

Pranab Mukherjee is a great son of India who has had a long and distinguished political career. Ever since his accidental inclusion in the union cabinet to achieve an auspicious count of ministers way back in 1973, he has worked tirelessly towards making India a better place to live.

But after all these years of service to the nation, maybe it is time for him to take a break. He isnt getting younger and watching him suffer from the burden of his brilliance makes us feel bad for him. And for poor mother India.

After Sardar Patel, he is the new Iron Man of India. Check out the strong words as the external affairs minister urging Pakistan to act on evidence shared by the FBI. No mention of the evidence supplied by Indian agencies. What humility by this great man!

“We have been told the FBI has strong evidence which they have shared with Pakistan. They (the Pakistani government) should act on that evidence and hand over the perpetrators of Mumbai to us,” the minister said.[link]

Mr Mukherjee’s contribution to Indian society is laudable. It is thanks to his efforts that the country is as peaceful and united as it is. He remains committed to maintaining the secular fabric of Indian society and continued communal harmony in the nation. Speaking at a recent program to mark 200 years of the Bengali translation of the Quran in Kolkata, here’s what he had to say.

“Not only is this expression Islamic terrorism unacceptable, there should be protest against it.[link]

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, India, News, politics, sarcasm , congress, external minister, general elections, India, indian politics, parliament, pranab mukherjee, Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi

Spreading the holiday cheer

2008 was an eventful year.

America went into an economic depression. Indian firms started feeling the heat, and layoffs are a routine affair now. Mumbai saw the worst terror attacks India has ever seen. America got a new and very dynamic leader in Barrack Obama. India sent a mission to the moon. India managed a nuclear deal with the US despite the left’s best efforts to disrupt the deal. Manmohan Singh managed to last his entire term in office.

In sports, China celebrated its coming-of-age party in the shape of the most lavish Olympics ever. India managed to win not one, but three individual medals. Vishwanathan Anand became the undisputed world chess champion. Recently the Indian cricket team walloped England.

Hopefully 2009 will be a little less eventful. Hopefully the economic situation will improve. Hopefully India’ will keep going on the road to progress. Hopefully the elections will give us a stable, strong government that will work on improving the infrastructure and keep up the GDP growth. Hopefully the terrorists will get jobs that lead to retirement and give up their guns for keyboards and mice.

Happy New Year everybody! Hopefully the new year will bring cheer and good health to our lives.

Here’s some pictures taken from all over New york city to brighten up otherwise dull times.

Holiday decorations at Macy’s

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Filed under: Happenings, Newyork, Travel , christmas tree, happy new year, holiday decorations, holiday lights, macys, Newyork, rockefeller center

VP Singh is No More

In the midst of all the news surrounding the Mumbai blasts, one important event got sidelined. The death of  Vishwanath Pratap Singh, former prime minister of India.

Adopted by the Maharaja of Manda at the age of five, VP Singh went on to become the Chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. As CM he gave away land to the poor as part of Vinoba Bhave’s Bhoodan movement and led a ruthless campaign against bandits.

VP Singh had a checkered political career of a mere seven years on the national stage.

In 1984 Rajiv Gandhi appointed him his finance minister. During the Bofors scandal, he was about to disclose the names of middlemen which led to a fallout with the then ruling Gandhi. He was dismissed from the cabinet and resigned from the parliament.

In the 1989 elections, the BJP and the left combined against the Congress and VP Singh became Prime Minister of India.
He was there when Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s daughter Rubaiya was kidnapped, and exchanged for five of the most wanted terrorists India had managed to nab. His role lasted all of one year, before the BJP pulled the rug from under the government following the Babri masjid demolition and the ensuing events.

But these are not the reasons why he will be remembered forever.

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, News , India, Kashmir, mandal commission, mufti mohammad sayeed, reservation, rubaiya sayeed, Terrorism, vp singh

Terrorists’ Best Friends – News Channels

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Till a few years back, here’s how terrorists operated. They picked a target, decided whether they want to bomb or shoot, implement the plan and kill a bunch of people, and soon the world would get to know about it. There would be news for a few days and then people would move on.

With the advent of modern news channels, things have changed.

Now the terrorists’ job has become easier, thanks to 24 hour live coverage on TV. Now they need to begin their attack, and wait till media persons arrive. Then they start playing to the media.

Earlier their actions affected a few hundred, maybe a few thousand people, but now millions of people can watch in real time all the gruesome details, and the message is spread far and wide. As much as we appreciate information sharing, this is one arena where too much information is counter productive. Not only is the terror message delivered far and wide, and repeatedly, but they get assistance from television channels beaming live coverage of operations against them.

Its like the law enforcement agencies are fighting two enemies at the same time.

Case in point, the recent operations in Mumbai to weed out those rotten scoundrels responsible for bringing India to a standstill for the past few days. As NSG commandos were dropping onto the roof of the building, their images were being telecast live.

How in earth are they going to surprise any terrorists if they can see what is going on outside on CNN-IBN? How about deferring telecasting the footage by maybe half an hour?

…Shankar says anchors play a critical role in maintaining balance in the midst of live coverage. “Unfortunately, many channels have people of poor intellectual calibre and maturity as anchors. And this is across English and Hindi news channels,” he said. “We also need to find more dignified ways of approaching victims who’ve just emerged from a traumatic experience rather than thrusting mikes in their faces as if they have just come out of a matinee show.”[link]

You see survivors coming outside the hotels, and a dozen cameramen surround them.  A person coming out from a horrific ordeal in a state of trauma deserves some courtesy/water/space/respect, not twenty howling journos asking how he felt.

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, News, Thoughts , attack, Bad Journalism, cnn-ibn, deccan mujahideen, India, indian media, maharashtra, mumbai, mumbai terrorist attacks, Terrorism, war on terror

The Last Straw

They carried out bomb blasts in Mumbai. We rebounded and rebuilt the city. They attacked our parliament, and we stopped juust short of eliminating our neighbor state. They carried out bomb blasts in Delhi, and we kept going on.

Today they crossed the line. We have had enough.

Our hearts go out to the families of those killed in the latest attack on India. This sudden turn of events is unbearable, unfortunate, undesired, unnecessary, and completely uncalled for.

When the US was attacked in 2001, they went to war with Afghanistan. How is India going to react? Our prime minister has already condemned the attacks. Does he have the balls to do anything more?

The proverbial long arm of the law apparently isn’t long enough. We are being attacked at will, and the intensity of the attacks and the damage keeps increasing.

Somebody needs to start taking their job more seriously.

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, India, News, Thoughts , deccan mujahideen, isi, Kashmir, maharashtra, mumbai, mumbai terrorist attacks, Pakistan, simi, Terrorism, war on terror

Popping the Pirate Party

For all the hoopla over Indian navy’s new role as savior of the needy and helpless, take this.

The Navy’s decision to destroy a pirate mother ship is now being questioned by a Thai national who says the ship sunk last Tuesday in the Gulf of Aden actually belonged to him. [link]

Fourteen sailors are still missing from a Thai trawler that was sunk last week by the Indian navy as a suspected pirate ship, the vessel’s owner said Tuesday.[link]

Apparently, the victim was not the mother of pirate ships as so prominently claimed and acclaimed in the media. It was just another poor ship being attacked by those mean SOBs. The pirates were on the ship, but it wasn’t theirs!
No wonder they fired at INS Tabar, which happily shot them down.

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Filed under: Happenings, India, News , indian navy, ins tabar, navy, pirate mother ship, somalia, somalian pirates, tabar, trigger happy ships

Divided We Fall

Once upon a time, there was a nation that could have lived happily ever after. But then that nation decided to become a democracy, and a confused mix of socialism and communism and capitalism.

Things would never be the same again.

Down the line, several new isms joined in. Big brother communalism started dividing the people on the basis of their regional identities. The nation of twenty one national languages and thousands of other languages and dialects started breaking up. South India hated North India. North India was suspicious of South India. Things came to a pass in 2008 when Maharashtra started beating up people from other states for taking up local jobs and not speaking the local language.

Separatism soon engulfed different corners of the nation. Kashmiris started burning flags and killing people. ULFA went on a rampage in the northeast. Naxalites took over Andhra and adjoining regions.

Then came along secularism. This one was funny because it was really anti secularism. This practice involved certain people from certain political outfits favoring certain religious communities, while ignoring the needs of the majority community. Anyone doing that was proclaimed non secular. Secularism acquired a new meaning – taking for granted the Hindu majority and appeasing the religious minorities to tap into their vote bank.

This secularism eventually broke up the country and gave rise to hatred and intolerance among the various communities.

Soon this evolved into fundamentalism. Muslim groups started blowing up Hindus. Hindu groups started blowing up Muslims. Christian missionaries started getting burnt (literally, unfortunately). When this got too predictable, terrorist outfits started blowing up their own people, just to make the other side look worse. Nobody gained, and a lot of lives were destroyed.

Sikhs got plundered in 1984 because two of them had killed the reigning monarch of India. Hindu pilgrims got burnt alive inside their train at Godhra, and many more Muslims were killed in the ensuing riots.

Gandhi died a second death. And a few dozen more.

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Filed under: Happenings, India, Thoughts , bhaiya, bihar, communalism, communism, gandhi, godhra, hindu, India, maharashtra, muslim, national language, north vs south india, Regionalism, Secularism, Unity in Diversity

Basmati’s Got Company

Readers might rewind their brains to many years ago, when there was this huge outcry about an American company acquiring patent rights over Basmati rice.

Yes, the very same Basmati rice that we Indians have been cultivating for, for, forever.  How dare they? Basmati is India, spelt in seven letters.

Well, they were told to stick it, and after a big campaign, most of the patents were revoked. More importantly, Ricetec lost the right to claim the Basmati brand.

Trust American ingenuity to come up with alternatives.

Presenting, for our very own readers, for the first time, here’s Basmati’s American cousins.

Big brothers Kasmati and Texmati.

Kasmati is Indian Style Basmati. Texmati is Long Grain American Basmati

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, India, Pictures, SeenAndHeard , basmati rice, biopiracy, cool stuf, India, jasmati, kasmati, Newyork, rice, rice patent, ricetec, seen and heard, textmati

Turn of the Tide

They say a picture is worth a million words.

This one was discovered in a discount household store in Newyork.

So far we had only seen Indian stores selling stuff with prices printed in rupees. A non desi store selling Tide detergent for Rs 23 was, let’s just say, exciting.

(Just to clarify, these prices might be printed in rupees, but the beauty is that you pay in dollars, and the dollar price has no relation to the conversion rate)

God bless whoever thought up camera phones!

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, Pictures , Cool stuff, Newyork, Pictures, piracy, tide

Obama Wins

Today is a historic day for America. The country just elected it’s first Black president after 43 White ones.

The US has come of age.

Leave alone the glass ceiling, the steel door has been blasted open.

Makes me think of India. When will we Indians rise through petty barriers to appoint leaders based on merit and not their race, religion, or gender?

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, News, Thoughts , barack obama, democracy, India, us elections, us president

Great Wall Of Terror

t all started when some not so creditable people were allowed to take loans to buy them homes.  Down the line, some of them started defaulting on their mortgages. Suddenly banks were competing with each other in writing off billions of dollars of assets. Bear sterns went down. Lehman Brothers went down.  AIG went down. Washington Mutual went down. Wachovia is lined up. Overall some sixteen banks in the US have shut down this year.

Wall street has laid off over a hundred thousand people so far this year, and there’s no end in sight.

For those who didn’t know, Indian faces abound across all levels and departments on Wall Street. There’s a Vikram Pandit heading Citi. Finding an Indian MD at a Wall street firm is as hard as watching TV for a few hours without hearing about Raj Thackeray. There are Indian traders, Indian bankers, Indian techies (lots of them). Heck, Wall street loves Indian food.

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, News, Thoughts , AIG, bear sterns, depression, des, economic downturn, financial industry, India, investment bank, layoffs, lehman brothers, subprime crisis, unemployment, Wall Street

Fear

Fear seems to be the underlying theme of our lives these days.

Parents fear their kids not being smart enough to make it to the good colleges. Worse, they fear their kids being too smart to care for them. Teachers fear students filing FIRs if spoken rudely to. Kids fear getting paralyzed because a reality show host talked rudely to them.

They grow old and then they start fearing bad relationships. Or jilted lovers trying to throw acid on their face, or just kill them. Not being rich enough.

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, India, Thoughts , acid attacks, Desi, fear, India, mind, nuclear deal, pfizer, society

The Pope Rikshaw

India finally made itself known to Pope Benedict.

Italian automaker Piaggio presented a Pope-d version of the ubiquitous Indian autorikshaw to the Pope in the Vatican recently.

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, India, News , autorikshaw, Desi, India, pope, rikshaw

Russell Peters: Mind Blasting

“Russell your show was mind blasting. Mmmind Blaasting. Not mind blowing…anything can blow the mind. You just blasted the mind”

Russell Peters, talking about Indians complimenting him after shows.

The venue was the Borgata at Atlantic City, where the Amreekandesi family spent their weekend. We were going to to the Vegas of the East coast as it is, and were pleasantly surprised to find Russell Peters performing this weekend. Me and the missus managed to get prime seats very near the stage.

Close enough, but not too close, if you know what i mean!

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, India , atlantic city, borgata, comedy, comic, Desi, jo koy, russell peters, standup

Sonia Goes to Olympics

“Eighty heads of state and government will grace the Beijing Olympics in August but PM Manmohan Singh will not be among them.” [link]

Instead, the Chinese people, being as smart as they are, have invited the real ruler of India. The Madam. They did not invite the prime minister or the president, but the mere head of congress party.

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, India, Thoughts , china, Desi, India, olympics, Sonia Gandhi